Rakuten Acquires Bitcoin Startup Team for Blockchain Lab Launch
Japanese e-commerce firm #Rakuten has acqui-hired #bitcoin #startup Bitnet as part of a bid to staff its new #blockchain development lab in the UK.
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Swiss Bank UBS Latest to See Key Blockchain Lead Depart
UBS has become the #latest major #bank to see a significant departure from its #blockchain innovation team.
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Insider Threat Management – das müssen Sie wissen!
74% der Unternehmen sind nach eigenen Angaben anfällig für #Insider Attacken. 42% aller Unternehmen geben jedoch an, nicht ausreichend gegen dagegen geschützt zu sein. (*)
75% aller Unternehmen schätzen, dass die Korrektur eines Insider Threats bis zu 500.000 US-Dollar kosten kann. 25% wiederum denken, die Kosten könnten 500.000 US-Dollar sogar übersteigen und bis in die Millionen gehen.
Insider sind Personen, denen wir wissentlich Zugriff auf unsere Daten geben. Zum einen sprechen wir von Partnerfirmen, die Ihre Systeme administrieren. Obwohl dies meist auch geographisch extern gelegene Partnerfirmen sind, werden sie durch die vergebenen Berechtigungen automatisch zu Insidern. Auf der anderen Seite sind Insider aber vor allen anderen Ihre eigenen Mitarbeiter.
Wie stellen Sie heute fest, was diese mit Ihren Daten machen? Haben Sie den vollen Überblick? Denn: 60% aller Insider Threats eines Unternehmens werden durch privilegierte Anwender begangen. Privilegierte Anwender sind beispielsweise Manager mit Zugriffsberechtigungen auf sensible Informationen.
Insider Threat Spotlight Report 2016 &8211; Risky Users
71% der Fälle von Datenverlust eines Unternehmens passieren unbeabsichtigt, gefolgt von fahrlässigen (68%) und böswilligen (61%) Anwendern.
Ihre Anwender sinnvoll zu schulen und zu trainieren, generiert meist viel Aufwand. Der Markt hat in diesem Segment nicht viel zu bieten.
&8211; Heute weisen Sie via E-Mail auf Policies hin und hoffen, dass diese umgesetzt werden.
&8211; Sie schulen Ihre Mitarbeiter halbjährlich in Konferenzräumen, die das Gesehene zwei Minuten nach Verlassen des Raumes wieder vergessen haben.
&8211; Sie weisen Mitarbeiter an, nervige Multiple-Choice Tests abzuarbeiten
Dieses Webinar zeigt Ihnen, wie Sie die Security-Awareness Ihrer Anwender kosteneffizient steigern, ohne dass diese den Arbeitsplatz verlassen #müssen. Gleichzeitig schützen Sie sich gegen Insider-Attacken.
Zur Teilnahme am Webinar, melden Sie sich hier an!
The post Insider Threat Management – das müssen Sie wissen! appeared first on Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News – FintechNewsCH.
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To Go Big on Blockchain, ‘Big Four’ Firm PwC Thinking Small
To scale up its #blockchain operations, ‘Big #Four‘ audit #firm PwC is #thinking #small with its strategy.
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The VC business is finally being disrupted
Image source VCs love to invest in #technology and business models that disrupt the old established way of doing things. The irony that VC is now an old established way of doing things has not been lost on many people and the disruption of VC has been much forecast forRead More
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Fintech Funding Down 26% Annually, But Future Looks Brighter
The newest Pulse of #Fintech report by KPMG and CB Insights shows that investment in VC-backed fintech companies and startups fell nearly 50% across the globe, with U.S. investment specifically #down 26% from same quarter results last year. The number of deals is also down for the quarter, with mega-round activityRead More
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Could Apple be your next bank?
A few weeks ago, I was enjoying a lazy Saturday morning in London loitering on social media, when I got an unexpected message from #Apple Pay. It was a payment confirmation to Uber. I checked the App to find 5 transactions on Uber between 1:00 and 5:00 am, when I was fast asleep. I logged-in to the Uber app to find 5 long distance trips in the Philadelphia area – I had been hacked.
I immediately checked my Amex app – the payment card on the Uber account – to block payment. There was no trace of the fraudulent transactions. I called Amex customer service and they (somewhat unapologetically) explained that transactions in their App can take up to 24 hours to appear “That’s just how the app operates”. What struck me about this was not that Amex could not provide data to me in real time – they clearly could if Apple could – It’s that they felt it was not necessary.
Those who use it know, that Apple Pay is a better card payments interface than those most card companies currently offer – and they have done this using the card companies’ own infrastructure. Apple understands the value of a good user experience that truly addresses the needs of a card customer, much better than the card companies themselves seem to do.
In the last few years, we all know how Apple disrupted the media distribution, mobile phones and photography industries. They did this, not because they were attracted to the economics of these industries, but because they wanted people to buy more iPhones, iPads and iPods. So a question many should ask is: what if If Apple decides that banking is the next service they need to provide to sell more boxes?
What would Apple Banking look like? I would suggest that they would build their proposition on top of three key things they are very good at: user experience, authentication and data analytics.
This platform would engage with a number of third parties that would provide a banking service superior to anything in the market. Considering Apple’s customer base, skills and financial strength – Apple Banking could easily become the world’s most formidable challenger #bank.
The Apple Banking platform would offer three main services that would enable customer to do the following:
- Manage: Brilliant user experience to understand and supervise how customers manage their money enabling users to control their money
- Optimise: Provide customer the knowledge and the ability to be always getting the best provider for their financial needs
- Reward: Use their understanding of the customer to provide them relevant and valuable rewards
Manage
First and foremost Apple Banking will be a mobile application integrated with Apple Pay. Apple is very good at making complex processes appearsimple to the end-user. The Apple Pay proposition, even in its current incarnation, is a distinct improvement on many other mobile payment propositions in the market. Apple Banking would do the same.
Customers would be able to engage with their banking platform in a simple and clean interface that provides them with a snapshot of their financial situation. Powerful PFM (good examples of Personal Financial Management businesses are Quicken and Geezeo) would provide customers with clear insight and possible actions that they could take to get the most from banking provision. Apple would get customers’ permission to access their bank accounts and populate the Apple Banking application with real-time customer transactional information. This would then be re-presented to customers in a way that is straightforward to understand and easy interact with. This interface would enable customers to interact with their bank through the Apple Banking interface, making it possible for the customer to do anything they can do on their Bank’s web and mobile offerings through their App. A brilliant example of good banking services UX is provided by the Finnish non-bank wallet Holvi (recently acquired by BBVA).
To get access to live customer data, Apple could use the (few for now) existing banking APIs or resort to a screen-scraping solution. Yodlee andeWise are good examples of businesses that already offer this service. In Europe with the advent of PSD2 (European Payments Services Directive) EU #banks will be mandated to let their customers enable “Trusted Third Parties” to access their personal bank accounts through APIs. Apple will then be able to reinvent the digital banking UX available to most bank customers.
Within this new UX, Apple could provide insight on the quality, pricing and features of the services customers are receiving from their bank. This would be equivalent of a whole-of-market impartial shopping comparison, using real customer data that requires almost no effort for customers to set up. Customers would quickly see if they are getting value for money or if they would be better off with another provider. A good example of this approach is provided by Ontrees in the UK.
All of this would reduce the need for customers log in to their bank to bank. Customers would begin prefer to use Apple Banking to other interfaces available to them gradually becoming dis-intermediated from their bank, eventually resulting in the customer loyalty to shift from the Banks to Apple. This would lead customers to see banking as a commodity with Apple Banking as their trusted advisor protecting them from being taken advantage from the unscrupulous banks. All of which neatly leads to the next feature of Apple Banking.
Optimise
Once Apple Banking becomes the primary way customers engage with their bank, providing them with insight on the quality of the banking services they are receiving, the next logical step is to enable customers to optimise their banking provision. Apple Banking could not only show customers which provider would offer them the best service and value for money – they could also make it extremely easy for customer to move their custom to the best provider.
Apple Pay’s core proposition is to identify and authenticate the customer at the point of sale. Apple owns most of the data a bank needs to open a new customer account. Apple captures demographic data, details on ownership of other financial products and even biometric information that could be relatively easily bundled into an authentication / account opening service for banks. Apple Banking could allow customers to authenticate and open a new account with a new provider with a few taps. Making the commoditisation of the bank complete. The challenger bank Mondo is aiming for such an approach.
Reward
Once Apple Banking is able to provide all of the above the services to their customers, the next step is provide rewards. Apple Banking could leverage Apple’s relationship with the retailers and manufacturers to provide cash-backs and incentives to their customers. This would be a supercharged version of the. big-data cash-back propositions provided by businesses likeCardlytics and Meniga.
Apple has gone out of their way to announce that they would not use customer data for marketing purposes without their consent. But if customers consent, the richness of the data that Apple has access to would enable the rewards that it could provide be more substantial and better targeted that any other provider today.
If Apple decides to launch Apple Banking it would give banks a real run for their money. Apple has a better grasp on user experience and customer engagement than most businesses – not just banks. They have close to a billion iPhones in customers’ hands, a good few hundred millions with Touch-id authentication built-in, it has a trusted brand, very deep pockets and the skills to completely revolutionise the retail banking industry.
The attractiveness of the banking sector for Apple is not in its financial return. Banking is a relatively low margin, highly regulated and difficult business – so it’s unlikely that Apple will want to become a bank. Apple’s interest is in becoming an even more integral part of its customers’ life, creating an even higher barrier for them to switch hardware provider.
In a few years we could see that, not only does the world’s biggest taxi service not own any cars and the world’s largest hotel chain not own any property also the world’s greatest bank doesn’t have a banking license.
[linkedinbadge URL=”https://www.linkedin.com/in/aehatami” connections=”off” mode=”icon” liname=”Alessandro Hatami“] is Founder at The Pacemakers and this post was originally published on linkedin.
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Gartner: Blockchain Hits Hype Cycle Peak
#Blockchain #technology has hit the #peak of its #hype #cycle according to a new report by #Gartner.
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Why Ethereum Classic Must Die
In this Op-Ed, investor Jacob Eliosoff argues that the #ethereum community needs to rally around one #blockchain.
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Swisscom Startup Challenge: And The Winner Is…
Es ging heiss zu und her, heute im Digital Lab an der EPFL in Lausanne: Die Top 10 der #Swisscom #StartUp #Challenge traten zum Pitch an. Wir verraten euch, welche fünf Start-ups den Sieg davon trugen und Ende September für ein einwöchiges Business Acceleration Program ins Silicon Valley fliegen.
Lebhaft und doch äusserst konzentriert, so war die Athmosphäre heute im Digital Lab an der EPFL in Lausanne. Wen wundert‘s! Die Top 10 der Swisscom StartUp Challenge traten alle mit dem Ziel an, den Sieg davon zu tragen. Doch bereits bevor sie nach Lausanne fuhren, vollbrachten die zehn Start-ups eine Meisterleistung. Aus über 200 hervorragenden Bewerbungen haben sie es ins Finale der vierten Swisscom StartUp Challenge geschafft. Kein leichtes Unterfangen!
Die wahre Challenge stand aber erst heute bevor. Es galt, eine hochkarätige und sehr anspruchsvolle Jury zu überzeugen – so unter anderem Roger Wüthrich-Hasenböhler (Chief Digital Officer Swisscom), Adrienne Corboud (Vize-Präsidentin EPFL), Dave Brown (Business Angel of the Year) sowie Beat Schillig (Geschäftsführer des Programm-Partners venturelab).
Gerade mal 15 Minuten hatte jedes Start-up für den Pitch vor der Jury. Da bleibt für Details kein Platz. Was zählt, ist eine klare Vision, die prägnant rübergebracht wird. Das ist aber nur die eine Seite des Spiels: zehn Minuten erhielt die fünfzehnköpfige Jury ihrerseits, um das jeweilige Start-up mit harten Fragen zu löchern. Da werden ein paar Minuten zuweilen zur brutalen Ewigkeit! Doch bei aller Nervosität – es war viel Professionalität spürbar heute!
Um bei der Jury zu punkten, mussten die Start-ups nicht nur clevere Ideen und ein überzeugendes Geschäftsmodell vorlegen, sondern auch Teamgeist und Entschlossenheit demonstrieren. Besonders begeistert war die Jury von Advanon, Fashwell, Nanolive, Qumram, Xsensio.
Roger Wüthrich-Hasenböhler: „Die Kreativität und der Tatendrang der Jungunternehmen haben mich einmal mehr beeindruckt. Ich freue mich, dass wir mit unserem Programm junge Unternehmer darin unterstützen können durchzustarten und Innovationskraft in die Schweiz hineinzutragen.“
Die fünf Gewinner sicherten sich die Teilnahme am Business Acceleration Programm im Silicon Valley. Dieses massgeschneiderte Mentorenprogramm erlaubt den Jungunternehmen, ihr Geschäftsmodell auf Herz und Nieren prüfen zu lassen und wertvolle Kontakte zu internationalen Partnern und Mentoren zu knüpfen. Die Reise treten die Start-ups am 26. September an. Wir werden davon berichten.
Diese fünf Start-ups fliegen ins Silicon Valley:
Von drei Ex-Googlern gegründet, ermöglicht Advanon KMU, ihre offenen Rechnungen einfach, schnell und transparent zu finanzieren. KMU können ihre Debitorenrechnungen auf der Advanon Onlineplattform von Investoren finanzieren lassen und erhalten binnen 24 Stunden Liquidität. So können Unternehmen ihren kurzfristigen Liquiditätsbedarf optimal ihrem Geschäftsverlauf anpassen und auf lange Wartezeiten verzichten, während Investoren Zugang zu einer neuen Anlagekasse erhalten.
Täglich klickt man sich auf Instagram durch Tausende von Bildern, auf denen Models Kleider tragen, die man auch gerne tragen würde. Mit der Vision, Fashionprodukte im Internet dem User zugänglich zu machen und ihm die Möglichkeit zu bieten, diese zu kaufen, haben drei ETH-Absolventen Fashwell entwickelt: eine App, die einen bevorzugte Fashionprodukte online finden und kaufen lässt, ermöglicht durch einen Algorithmus zur Bildanalyse, der auf maschinellem Lernen basiert.
Wissenschaftler arbeiten für Wissenschaftler – unter diesem Motto ist das am Innovationspark der ETH Lausanne entstandene Start-up Nanolive geboren. Nanolive ist eine neuartige Technologie, welche die dreidimensionale Erforschung lebender Zellen mithilfe eines Mikroskops ermöglicht, ohne diese zu beschädigen. Damit lassen sich insbesondere Fortschritte in der medizinischen Forschung erzielen, indem beispielsweise die Wirkung von Medikamenten an lebenden Zellen getestet werden kann.
Das Zürcher Start-up Qumram widmet sich einem der zukunftsträchtigsten Märkte – Big Data. Qumram ist eine Big-Data Plattform, auf der jegliche Onlineinformationen lückenlos und rechtssicher aufgezeichnet und später zu einem beliebigen Zeitpunkt abgerufen werden können. Dadurch können Unternehmen ihre gesetzliche Nachweispflicht erfüllen, Betrug aufdecken durch die Analyse von Kundeninteraktionen und das Kundenerlebnis optimieren.
Das an der ETH Lausanne entstandene Start-up Xsensio hat ein Wearable entwickelt, welches die biochemischen Informationen an unserer Hautoberfläche nutzt, um non-invasiv und in Echtzeit Informationen über unseren Gesundheitszustand und unser Wohlbefinden zu liefern. Anders als herkömmliche Wearables basiert Xsensio auf Nanotechnologie, welche sich Informationen von Proteinen, Molekülen und Elektrolyten an der Hautoberfläche zunutze macht.
Dieser Artikel erschien zuerst hier
The post Swisscom Startup Challenge: And The Winner Is… appeared first on Fintech Schweiz Digital Finance News – FintechNewsCH.
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